


Concealed Carry

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Episode: s11e01 Out of the Darkness Into the Fire, Gen, Headspace, Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 16:18:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4967779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You had forgotten what you were like without the Mark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Concealed Carry

**Author's Note:**

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You had forgotten what you were like without the Mark.

It had been your own hell on earth, days feeling like months, months feeling like years. If anyone asked you how long you had spent with that loud bright angry stamp on your soul, you wouldn’t be able to answer. It felt like forever.

That’s how long you would have had to fight it, and that’s how long the fight felt, that constant struggle against what it wanted, that incessant battle that took all your time and energy and focus.

It was all you knew. Now that it’s gone, you don’t know what to do.

\--

Sam asks, “Are you okay?”

You’re reminded of the few times you’ve been to the doctor for checkups. They tapped that little hammer against your knee, testing your reflexes.

_Are you okay?_

You and Sam have been bashing each other over the head with that question for years.

You nod automatically.

\--

Now that it's gone, you’re only yourself.

The anger and pain linger, and knowing they belong only to you is worse, somehow. These are your own thoughts and your own struggles, and there’s no way you’re going to be able to convince yourself otherwise.

It is its own type of frightening.

\--

“This job is supposed to be saving people,” Jenna says.

“Yeah,” you reply, “well. It sounds better on paper, doesn’t it?”

Your whole life sounds better on paper. Hell, Chuck wrote those damn books and you had fucking _fans,_ for God’s sake.

You used to read the message boards when you were feeling down, which is to say you read them every chance you got. You scrolled through page after page of people talking about how your story saved them, changed their life, gave them the strength to get out of bed in the morning.

You’re glad Chuck stopped writing. You don’t like to imagine what people would be saying about who you are now, about what you’ve become.

You’re not sure anyone could make this sound good, no matter how many details they left out.

\--

Mike can feel himself changing before the darkness turns him.

You want to laugh at how well you know that feeling, of things going south from the inside out.

You can’t fight that, you know. You can’t stop it, you can’t reverse it, you can’t cure it. You can’t be saved. It’s pointless to try.

Mike knows it, too. It’s why he doesn’t ask whether or not he’s going to become like _them._ He only wonders how long before he does. 

\--

Cas says he's fine.

He’s asking you about the Mark like he’s actually worried. He doesn't sound angry with you. Then again, he doesn’t sound fine, either.

You know, at your core, that he’s just hoping he has one less problem to deal with. You know better than to believe him. That's what you get for teaching him how to lie.

When he hangs up abruptly, you’re not even surprised. You wouldn’t want to talk to you, either.

\--

The darkness tells you you’re inescapably bound to her.

Frankly, you’ve had enough of profound bonds. They never seem to work out how you want.

\--

Sam says, “Saving people means _all_ of the people, Dean.”

You get it. You really do. Even though you both know these people have a short shelf life whether or not you put a bullet in them, that doesn’t mean Sam wants to be the one to make the call. You understand.

It’s not that you don’t want to save everyone. It’s not that you think those people don’t deserve to be saved just because they had the shit luck of being infected. It’s just that you’ve spent months now forgetting what it feels like, the obligation to be a savior. You’re trying to grab hold of it again, but you keep cutting your fingers on the edges.

It would help if you didn’t feel like someone who needs saving, right now. But you’re back to being yourself, so you have to step up and be the hero, just like always. No one is coming to help you, regardless of whether or not you deserve it.

It wouldn’t make a difference, anyway. You have an expiration date, too. It doesn’t matter whether you also have someone who’ll refuse to pull the trigger.

\--

You had felt relieved, at first.

You had a few glorious seconds where you were free of the Mark and nothing else had yet come to fill its place. Nothing else had come to lay a claim to you. And you had thought, foolishly: _Finally, don’t have that weight on my shoulders anymore._

And then you came face to face with the darkness you’d been fighting, the curse pulled from your flesh and given its own. It has a body and a face and a voice separate from yours, but it’s still connected to you, exactly like you were promised. You broke it, you bought it.

Just like that, you’d been given something else to carry.


End file.
